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While plowing through the mountain of housework each day or driving to the umpteenth therapist appointment, I’m often thinking about the other blogs here at adoption.com or the comments I receive or the emails with questions I can’t often answer. The lack of logic in the world of the older adopted child is mind-boggling yet understandable.
If my very underpinnings, if any semblance of security or stability had constantly been knocked out from under me, I doubt I’d be able to make a complete sentence at all.
A social worker wrote this post today and I’ve been thinking about its clarity and insight. She used the term ‘the arrogance of a privileged youth,’ in talking about her own upbringing and I see myself reflected in her words.
I had no clue when I first started adopting children, no idea as to the depths of pain within their souls, no comprehension of their loss; somehow I ignorantly or arrogantly thought that love would fix their hurts.
With some of my children this has almost been so. I have a 13 year old with a sunny disposition, a great attitude and she’s only lived within our family for three years, the oldest in her sibling group and she was glad to turn over the parenting duties to me. So parentified was she that her siblings called her Memaw, a nickname that has stuck.
She’s such a sweetheart that her original caseworker called me today about another older sibling group that’s ready for adoption, comparing the 14 year old in that group to our Memaw as a manner of demonstrating how darling this young girl is who waits for a family.
This sibling group, Hispanic and ages 10-14 generally and statistically face an uphill chance of being adopted. I’m concentrating hard on finding them a family, hurting inwardly at the thought of my four kids not having found a family, glad that we were chosen to be their family.
A local adoption worker here thinks she has an approved family that will adopt these four older children and that thought alone will make me sleep better tonight.
Photo Credit Cindy Bodie 2007
I’m laughing about the conflicting info I’m getting online, at this blog, and other places, re. sibling group adoption. I read that one upside of adopting sibs is that they are not so likely to have full-blown RAD — they at least care about one another. Then I read of siblings groups who sincerely don’t seem to care about each other at all, where much of the family’s day is spent keeping them separated.
I read about sib groups where one or more are the parentified kids, and are happy to give up that role and regain some of their childhoods (like your Memaw), and about other groups where younger sibs are not given permission to trust or attach to new parents because of an older sib’s lockhold on that role.
I read about the sadness of some parents as they realize they have less than half the “standard” 18 years to raise and influence their older children, and then about how there is truly nothing magical about age 18, and the kids could be around until 28 or 38, or until they all settle in and build a village around you.
So I guess it’s the nature of adoption — it has so many faces, so many possible outcomes, all one can do is share one’s own experience and hope it helps someone else. Thank you — we have begun praying and talking about our future sibling group !! — Rachel
I was a part of a sibling group that was adopted by wonderful people! I have to wonder sometimes if life wouldn’t have been easier if we had all been adopted seperately, though. My oldest brother didn’t care about the younger two and the second oldest blamed me for not being adopted by the people who he claims “loved he and my oldest brother, just didn’t want a girl.” So needless to say, I was always the odd ball out and felt as though my brothers didn’t care about me or love me at all. Although they do give me the connection of “family” and the only contact to my past, I sometimes have to wonder if that was the best for me or if it would have been better for me to get a comletely new start.
For a really great personal story about older adoption, you MUST read: “Three Little Words: A Memoir” by Ashley Rhodes-Courter….. pretty awesome and helpful….
My oldest daughter was heavily parentified and didn’t give up her role without a fight. Five years later, she is doing well and has established her own identity, separate from her siblings, but still shares a special closeness with her younger sister. The counselor for my youngest, without knowing much of their story, remarked that someone clearly nurtured this child while she was an infant/toddler. It showed clearly in her ability to heal from a later traumatic experience (post adoption). It had to have been her sister. What a gift she gave!
My wife and I adopted older children. One never lost the hurt and pain of being abandoned by his parents. He died tragically in what could have been and accident or could have been something else. His sister is now a college student with a 4.0 since starting three years ago. She will soon go on to Architectural School. She misses her parents at times but is heavily bonded to us. She still has some issues, but we would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Every nickel’s worth we spent in time, money, energy, emotional turmoil – we got more blessings for our investment than you can measure.
This is my first time to write a blog. I”m not sure if I’m doing this correctly. My husband and I have adopted three beautiful daughters: 11,9,8. They have been with us about a year. The oldest one lies and steals. Recently she has taken some nice jewlery out of my dresser and we found it in her rooms. She always denies it. Does anyone have any advice. She is grounded but that doesn’t seem to do much. She was taken from her home due to neglect. We’ve been down the therepy road. We’ve talked to her about this.
We have adopted four of our 10 children. Three were siblings, and we got them when they were preschoolers. We adopted one of our children at age 6 from Russia.
As a result of adoptions,I learned that emotions are critical. Understanding what we think, why we think that, why that is important, and how our emotions influence action is absolutely vital to the success of any adoption, or any relationship, for that matter. My husband and I now have a website devoted to teaching about the importance of understanding emotions, and discussing “principles” of emotions. It’s shocking to me to realize that as critical as our emotions are, we are never really taught much about them. We’re not guilty for emotions, but our emotions produce actions, so we need to understand our emotions if we are going to understand ourselves! This is so important for adopted children in particular!
And adoptive parents!
The comment about having adopted three siblings, ages 11, 9 and 8 really hit a chord with me. We’ve experienced similar situations in our family, not always with our adopted children, and also I’ve done a lot of work with other adoptive families. This is a real issue. As this person probably knows, using discipline techniques probably will do very little good. The idea, as I have to come understand it, is that we must somehow help the child heal emotions. That isn’t easy, but it is do-able. There is an emotional component behind the stealing. When we learn how to understand emotions, it becomes easier to find a core issue such as this. Once the issue is found, it really is quite simple to resolve that emotion. But when we treat it as a “problem” instead of the problem being a symptom of an emotion, we won’t be addressing the real issue, and it probably won’t change behavior.
Thanks for letting me vent! From very personal experience, I do understand how extremely important emotions are to adoptive families!
Janet Summit
http://www.peacethroughprinciples.com
We are currently considering adoption of two boys, they’ve been with us for a few months. At first we weren’t considering because we thought God’s plan for us was Fostering. Now, we’re not so sure as we feel the last thing these boys need is one more home and they are doing so well we don’t want to distrupt it. We are doing a lot of praying and want to make sure that this is not just the right decision for us but for the boys. I appreaciate all your comments and am looking forward to sitting down here on Sunday and reading more of them.
and…I bought that book – Three little words. they didn’t have it at my public library. So after I’m done I might donate it to them.